Four to die for plot to kill Pakistan president

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A Pakistani military court today sentenced four people to death
and handed two others life terms for their role in a 2003 attempt
to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf.

They were involved in a plot by junior Pakistani air force
officials to kill Musharraf by blowing up a bridge in the garrison
city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, on December 14, 2003. Musharraf
narrowly survived.

"Four junior officials have been sentenced to death and two
others were given life imprisonment today," a senior security
official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The assassination bid was the first of two in the same month.
Key US ally Musharraf escaped unharmed because a hi-tech jamming
device on the president's Mercedes had delayed the detonation of
five bombs.

On Christmas Day 2003 two suicide bombers rammed
explosives-laden vehicles into Musharraf's motorcade in Rawalpindi.
Again he escaped.

Both attacks were allegedly masterminded by Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda network, which opposed Musharraf's support for the US-led
campaign to oust the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan in
late 2001.

In August a soldier linked to the bridge blast plot was hanged,
while five people - a low-ranking army official and four civilians
- were sentenced to death for the Christmas Day attack.

In May, Pakistan arrested an air force official who escaped jail
late last year after being sentenced to death for the bridge
attack.

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